Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(48)

“I’m coming with you. With the fireplace poker.”

He began to shake his head, but she marched to the door. “You are not leaving me in here all alone.”

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “You will get soaked to the skin, Portia.”

“As will you.” She said archly, “You do remember I wanted to marry you once. I don’t now, but I still would be hurt—heartbroken—if anything happened to you.”

Then he said the most shocking thing, just before opening the glass door and stepping out onto the rain-swept terrace. “You give me hope, angel.”

“Please cease to say things like that,” she said, following him out.

As she passed through the open terrace door, she walked into the sudden embrace of his tailcoat, which he’d worn under the great coat he’d draped on Willoughby.

Sinclair drew his warm coat around her. But despite being swathed in his great coat, her face was almost instantly wet. Her hair was quickly catching up. Already, it clung to her cheeks. Rain dripped from her eyelashes and pelted against her eyes.

She’d thought the rain was coming down like a sweeping gray sheet. She’d been wrong. Rain seemed to drop in quantity, like an entire sea flooding the terrace from the heavens. His brown hair was plastered to his brow. His shirt, where not covered by waistcoat, went transparent.

Completely. It clung to his shoulders, his biceps, his forearms, like a teasing veil revealing hints of bronzed skin and dustings of chocolate-brown hair.

“You can’t give me your coat,” she protested. “You’ll be soaked.”

“Look down, Portia.”

Confused, holding his coat on her shoulders with one hand, she did. She had run out in the borrowed white nightdress without even thinking. Rain. White fabric. His shirt looked positively proper in comparison to the way her nightgown’s skirt clung to her legs. She could see the pink skin of her thighs through the clinging fabric. Tummy, bosom—wet fabric clung to every curve she had, revealing all. Her nipples were visible. Almost. A little longer in the rain and she might as well have been naked.

“Oh.”

Then, realizing he could see all, she went, “Oh,” and pulled the coat tighter.

He held out his hand to take hers.

“I can’t. Between holding your coat and the poker, I haven’t got any free hands.”

“Wait here, then,” he said. Then he turned and he was gone, running across the stone terrace in the rain. She could barely see him. There was some light spilling from the house. The stone terrace was large and rimmed with a carved stone balustrade. Ornamental vases of stone held flowers. Beyond the terrace, there was a stretch of lawns, but then there was the rough, craggy surface of the island, all mounded rock and small shrubs. That disappeared into darkness. Over the drumming rain, Portia faintly heard the crash of waves. The winds of the storm would be driving the seawater hard against the rocks.

There were some trees, but they were stunted, lichen-covered things with black trunks and twisted limbs and few leaves. No one could be hiding up in one of them, she was sure. And why would someone, in all this cold, pounding rain?

Holding the poker up, she hurried out after him. It was so hard to see she almost stumbled over him. He was crouched on one knee, running his bare hand over the grass.

She bent over. “What are you looking for?”

“Any kind of clue. Something left behind by Will’s attacker.”

She peered down at the wet flags. An uneven line of darkness ran along the stones, moving with the rain. Oh heavens, that was blood. “I don’t see a thing.”

“Neither do I.” He stood, straightening to his full height right beside her.

There was something about the sight of him wet—

She didn’t know what it was. The way his hair was sleek and shiny. He flicked his hair to send it flying back, away from her so she wasn’t hit by the spray. Droplets ran along his lips.

He must look rather like this after a bath—

A man had been killed! And she was certainly never going see the Duke of Sinclair after he had bathed. A wife barely even did such a thing—

It was the things he said. They made the daftest thoughts come into her head.

She was never going to marry the Duke of Sinclair.

He turned and strode toward the end of the terrace. She wanted to shout to him, but she was afraid of alerting someone. A killer, for example.

He paused, waiting for her to catch up. As she hurried to him, she saw him look down at her legs. She felt the fabric clinging to her. He looked pained.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as she reached him. “You look as if in agony.”

“I am. Seeing you in a skin-tight, wet white nightgown. This is punishment for every sin I’ve ever committed. To discover how lovely you are, when I can’t touch.”